Lewis Hamilton upbeat after promising start in Azerbaijan GP

Ferrari racer Lewis Hamilton was happy after he topped the FP2 session at the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Friday. It has been a tough time for the seven-time world champion in his first year with the Italian side, as he has failed to get comfortable with the tricky SF-25 consistently.

The British racer had made a big switch to the Marnello-based outfit at the start of the year after ending his 12-year partnership with Mercedes.

Hence, it was a shocking surprise for many to see Lewis Hamilton topping the FP 2 session in Baku ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc to cap off a strong Friday for Ferrari. After the session, during his interview with F1.com, Lewis Hamilton was looking relieved with the performance after a year full of ups and downs, saying:

"It really has [been] – thank the Lord! It wasn’t so positive [early on]… I would say [Free Practice 1] was a bit of a mess. This is a circuit where you have to have mega confidence on the brakes, and I had some problems with the brakes. Also, every track I’m going to is the first time driving the Ferrari at that circuit, so acclimatising to that is not easy."

After the summer break, Hamilton has largely been on an upward trajectory with his performances and seemingly closed the gap to Leclerc in qualifying and main races.

Lewis Hamilton on the chance to work with Top Gun Maverick director for the F1 Movie

The F1 movie was directed by the Top Gun Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. Lewis Hamilton was given the opportunity to play the role of Top Gun Maverick, but he was busy racing in the championship. Although, the Ferrari racer got the chance to work with Kosinski, and speaking about the experience during the F1 Movie premiere, he said,

“It's been an incredible-incredible experience from the moment that I spoke to Joe (Joseph Kosinski) about being a Maverick and then having to turn down that experience [of] being in that movie to then getting to work on this script with him and get to work on this movie.”

The Ferrari racer also explained how much Brad Pitt's character (Sonny Hayes) and Damson Idris's character (Joshua Pearce) were based on him.